


itch

by thefudge



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 3x05, Blood Drinking, Dark, Dark!Jughead, F/M, Feelings Realization, Twisted, but not really that dark, griffins and gargoyles, it's all a game (but it's not), it's the game's influence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 04:17:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16757776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: In order to ascend to the next level, you must draw blood from the lady of pearls and make her smile. Can you do both?





	itch

**Author's Note:**

> back at it again with my jeronica bullshit, is anyone surprised? lmao  
> basically, i'm taking advantage of the Griffins and Gargoyles game and the fact that Jughead is kiiiind of a sociopath about it. I mean, what if the game pushed him in a slightly darker direction? this is a study of that. if it's a little bit OOC, i'm sorry, but i am not letting this opportunity pass lol. (but also, i do feel the game is bringing out sides in him that betty doesn't find comfortable. so...one thing leads to another)  
> anyway, this is a guilty pleasure and it doesn't have to make sense, but i hope it does?

***

He had the itch. 

That was how he'd describe this game; an itch. It needed to be scratched, no matter what. 

He remembered being four years old, sitting with the Rubik's cube in his lap, spending hours upon hours trying to map its grooves and unlatch them. He knew there was one path, only one, that would lead him to victory. He ignored his baby sister crying in the crib, his mother yelling at him, his father shaking him by the shoulders, grabbing his chin. "Boy, look at me."

He did not look. He was _close_.

In his head, the path was clear. Ascend, meet the Gargoyle King, defrock him, solve the case. 

Somewhere along the way, the itch had become an all-consuming crawling under the skin and the only thing he could think of was ascend, ascend, _ascend_. 

He rolled the dice, blinded by the light in the doorway, opening wide for him - he was almost there. 

The instructions were clear. It goes to show he'd been right that the game was tailored to Riverdale and would not have worked in any other place.

For who else could this be about?

_In order to ascend to the next level, you must draw blood from the lady of pearls and make her smile. Can you do both?_

Jughead scratched the side of his throat. The group would understand he had to do this. He couldn't think about Betty right now. 

In a sense, the game gave life meaning, but also limited meaning to this town. And it was comforting to feel like there was nothing outside it, like you lived in a drop of water, free of consequences. 

He knew, deep down, there was something unhinged about his drive to master the game. 

But this was what it required, total dedication. He always threw himself right into the eye of the storm, every time. What was life without it?

Veronica hummed. A text from Jughead. That was new. And it was 11 PM. 

_Hey. You awake? Can we talk? J._

Veronica put down her book. She lowered her glasses as she texted back. 

_I'm awake. What is this about? V._

_I need to tell you face to face. Can I come over? It's urgent. J._

Her eyes widened considerably. _Now?? What happened? Is Archie okay??_ _V._

_Archie's safe and sound. It's something else. J._

_Are you in trouble? You can tell me. V._

_Not over the phone. J._

Veronica cursed under her breath. He sure liked to be cryptic. It was his whole aesthetic, after all. But she was unsettled. Why come to her instead of Betty with something like this? Unless it was so bad even Betty couldn't know. Maybe he was protecting her. She could see the logic in that.

Luckily for him, her parents were attending a fundraiser in New York. Mayor Lodge was in high demand, and the Lodge brand had to be kept pristine.

She had been glad to see the back of them. The Pembrooke had become almost uninhabitable since both her parents had effectively washed their hands of her. 

She paused for a moment, assessing the situation. 

No harm could come from this, she supposed.

_All right. You can come over. V._

There was no luck involved. Jughead had found out from his Serpents that the mayor was out of town and she had taken her husband with her.

The coast was clear.

He stood in front of the Pembrooke, trying to defuse the strange electricity running through him. His every instinct was pitched to a fever. He was going to do this. He fingered the penknife in his pocket. The same he had used on Penny.

But - Veronica was a friend, a good friend. 

He would be gentle, he would do this right.

He would do this. 

Veronica had told Smithers and the bodyguards to let him through, but he couldn't blame them for eyeing him suspiciously. He could barely stand still. 

The elevator ride felt endless. His palms were pools of sweat.

She was standing in the doorway. He saw her across the hall. He swallowed and something inside him clicked - the path. He was walking down the right path.

He was startled briefly by her appearance. She had thrown a silk robe over her clothes but he could see the leg-fitting yoga pants and the loose T-shirt underneath. She was also wearing her black-rimmed reading glasses. 

He had never seen her so uncoordinated, so un-put-together. Not even during her shifts at Pop's. 

She wasn't donning her pearls, but that was to be expected, given the falling out between her and Hiram. 

For a moment he stood there, looking at her as if she were a stranger. He had never visited her before, had never paid a social call. It was like he had stepped into a parallel universe where they actually did that.

Veronica eyed him with concern. 

"Hey. Come on in. Are you all right?"

Her trust made his stomach flip a little, but he pushed it aside. The determination in him was just as strong. 

The penthouse was large and sumptuous. There were gilt-frame paintings on the wall, miniature chandeliers, rosewood armoires. But what was more affecting than the rich pastels and gold-red brocades was the empty space. So much of it. Rooms that had swallowed other rooms. A vertiginous labyrinth. 

And here was Ariadne standing at the center of it, mistress of it, alone. 

Veronica led him into the kitchen. 

"I'll get you a soda. Or perhaps you need something stronger?"

Jughead shrugged off his Serpent jacket. What he needed doing required free movement, he reasoned.

Veronica paused by the fridge, watching him. He rarely took off his armor, if he could help it. She was starting to grow a bit alarmed. This really was serious. But she maintained her air of civility. "Please, get comfortable." 

Jughead hopped on the stool by the kitchen island. "Just water, thanks."

She took out a bottle of Evian. 

He almost snorted at that. She got one for herself too. She hopped on to the stool next to his, leaned her elbow against the counter.

"Okay, out with it, Jones. What's so urgent?" 

He leaned towards her, his gait somewhat more confident than she was used to. 

"I need your help." 

"Oh...of course." 

"It's...a little unorthodox."

"Have you seen my life lately? Unorthodox does not spook me." 

"No?" he wondered. 

Her dark eyes were wide and sincere. "Jughead, whatever it is, I'm here for you. I know I don't have a great track record but -" 

"That's - thank you." He meant it. 

He felt a stab - not of compunction or regret. But something else. Diluted teenage lust. The game was exercising its thrall. 

Was this how his father had felt when he was playing it? 

He fingered the knife in his pocket. Just a small cut on her palm, she'd let him do it. He wouldn't have to hold her down. He wouldn't hurt her, not really. 

But she wouldn't like it, not one bit. He needed her to like it. 

Veronica took a drink of her water. She licked the moisture from her lips. 

He released the knife. Maybe there was another way. Another spring of fresh blood. 

"I need you to..." he leaned in closer, nodding at her and she followed his movement.

His face was a breath away from hers. Her glasses fogged up. 

His eyes half-shut, his mouth ghosted over hers like a passing shadow.

Veronica flinched. She jumped off her seat, pushing him away. Just like her mother had shoved his father so many moons ago. 

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" 

Jughead scratched the side of his throat. The itch was there.

"I didn't smell any alcohol on your breath, so I know you're sober," she continued, eyes flashing. "What is going on?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to -"

"To _what_?" 

"I - I still think about that kiss in the hot tub," he blurted out, words falling from his mouth like river rocks. He was stalling for time, trying to make his actions reasonable. Was he lying? Technically, he _had_ thought about it. But he had not dwelled on it. Not for long. 

Veronica shook her head in disbelief. "We're dealing with bigger issues, if you haven't noticed. This whole town is going down in flames and - _this_ was your emergency?"

He changed tacks. "Do _you_ still think about it?" 

"About - " She blanched. "N-No. No. Of course not." 

But the way she said it, the way she placed emphasis did not discourage him. He was nonplussed. She _had_ thought about it. Huh. 

"Please tell me you didn't come all the way here to...unearth that mistake." 

Jughead rose from his seat. Once more, she noted the strange confidence in his bearing. A man on a mission. 

"Mistake. That's the thing, I'm not sure it was. And the only way to find out is to kiss you again. To _really_ know if it was a fluke. I like to be sure."

The deliberate, yet obfuscating logic of his argument was infuriating. She took a step back. She had the feeling he was cornering her. "That's nonsense. It was just a - a dare between friends, it meant nothing. You have a girlfriend whom you _love_ , might I remind you." 

Jughead smiled with half of his mouth. "Yes, and she loves Archie more. _She_ didn't kiss him on a dare. She did it because she wanted to. We both know she will return to him, eventually, as it was always meant to be." The callous edge of his voice hid the sudden lack of gravity at the pit of his stomach. The game was throwing him in the eye of the storm. He tried to swim.

Was he lying, was he not? He couldn't stop to reflect. "They are _meant_ for each other."

Veronica's face folded in on itself, like a Rubik's cube evading him. Part of what he'd said struck too close to home.

"Where is this coming from?" she asked, voice tight with bottled feelings. 

And suddenly, it was easy to lie. Because the lie was part of the game and the game was all that mattered. Words spilled out of him, words that he didn't know were already there. "I left them for an hour or so. I went to Pop's to grab some food. I climbed down into the bunker quietly, in case he was asleep. She was sitting on the bed next to him, hadn't even heard me. Archie was looking up at her like she was the only light in that dark place. He raised his hand and touched her cheek. Betty let him. She leaned into the touch. She took his hand in her lap, started rubbing circles in his palm, smiling in that way of hers when you know you _have_ her, completely. And you know - she used to do that same gesture with me and then tell me she loved me. So what does that mean?" 

Was he making this up? Had there really been - had Betty - ?

 _Yes_ , he realized. Yes, he was writing a story and the story was real.

He had felt sick with jealousy, but he had pushed it away, ashamed of his irrational fears. Archie had been hurt. It was normal for Betty to devote herself to him.

But the game had a way of taking things, wiping away their shame, making them clear. 

He hadn't planned on telling her, or maybe he had.

Maybe this was what the Gargoyle King wanted. Maybe they were all pawns in this half-lie, half-truth.

"It doesn't mean they're...It just means..." Veronica trailed off, unable to finish. She was looking past him, lost in thought. Her mouth was drawn, expression forlorn. Like the little girl whose toy had been stolen. _No_ , he thought. _She's better than that._

But he wasn't. 

"Face it, Veronica. He'll never look at you like that. He likes you. He _humors_ you. He makes himself think he loves you. He just hasn't figured out what he _really_ wants."

"You're reading into it. They're just childhood friends. They - they have this bond that goes beyond romance."

"And you're _happy_ with that? That you'll always be second place to him, deep down?"

Veronica glared at him. "Maybe it's Betty's unrequited crush acting up and Archie is humoring _her_."

Jughead laughed and it sounded mean and disembodied, but he liked the feeling. The sense of control. "You don't really think that, do you? He was tired and beaten and disarmed. He was at his most honest." 

He was narrating it, writing his book, the book he'd never publish because it would break him. 

She bristled, tried to raise her walls. "I know why you came here. You want to get even. She hurt you, you want to hurt her. Is that it?"

Jughead took another step towards her. "Betty and Archie will be happy no matter what I do. Maybe I don't want to stand in their way anymore. Maybe this isn't about them."

Veronica stumbled. She felt there must be a missing piece to the puzzle. This didn't make sense. It was ridiculous. Yet what he had said - that moment between her boyfriend and the blonde- it had felt more intimate than a kiss. More intimate than Archie telling her sweet nothings while he made love to her. 

She clenched her jaw. 

There was a lump in her throat, but she wasn't going to _cry_. They weren't children. But with everything that had happened, the stress of keeping the Speakeasy afloat, Penny Peabody's threats, Archie's imprisonment, her parents' cold shoulder, it was all stacking up like a flimsy house of cards. One breath and it would all tumble down.

"We're in the same boat, Lodge," he said, taking another step forward. He had walked into her home and now into her personal space like he had always meant to.

He had watched her all summer too, watched her take shifts at Pop's, watched her sweat and toil for what -? What was it all for? Herself? Archie? 

"I don't want to sink. Do you?" he asked, getting closer and closer. 

She didn't recognize this boy, but there was a part of her that felt she had known him forever. No, not the outcast, not the social reject. 

No, she was talking about the entitled asshole. Who secretly coveted. Who thought _he_ should have the girl because he was sensitive and smart, because he was a _good_ guy. Just like she secretly coveted. Just like she thought _she_ should have the boy because she wasn't like those Park Avenue divas, not really, she was sensitive and smart, she was a _good_ girl. 

_Choose me. Pick me_ , they both screamed like brats. _I'm the superior alternative. I am better than everyone else._

Their eyes reflected the same frustration. 

"I thought things would be different in this town," she said, so quiet that it was almost inaudible.

"No. We're the same people, always," he said and didn't stop until her back hit the wall behind her. "We can't escape it."

Veronica felt cold comfort in that final grim sentence. 

Her spirit hardened until it became pure.

_Fine._

If it was all in vain, she was going to stare into the mirror he held up for her and bite down on the glass. 

He placed a hand against the wall, right next to her head, but it didn't feel like a trap. Not yet. 

He leaned forward and took off her glasses. 

Veronica's breath hitched. How did he knows what to do? Why was it so effective? 

How had they ended up here? Pieces on a board, being moved by an invisible hand.

And - it suddenly clicked for her.

"Is this - is this the game?" Not _about_ the game. But the Game itself.

She didn't know how right she was.

A ghost of a smile on his lips. "Does it matter?"

And he didn't let her catch her breath. He took from her that courage when she'd pulled him into a kiss.

He captured her lips, dragging her mouth to him, dragging her whole body to him, inhaling the bittersweet scent of her hurt pride. 

Her nails clasped his shirt, trembling, as she kissed him back. 

He was not warm like Archie, but he was a live wire. She felt little shocks of pleasure coursing through her. They didn't fit together snugly, their mouths broke away and met again in a fallen rhythm that would never be comfortable and lazy, would never be simple. They clashed, sparked and fizzed out, fireworks throwing an undiscovered continent into light, then melting in the water, disappearing below, clashing again, sparking incandescent, unknown lands burning white on the horizon, negative suns in their mouths, more painful - _more_ something - 

His hands cupped her face, drawing the heart inside it, tracing her jaw, the lining of her neck, thumb pressing down on the membrane of air between her shoulder blades. He felt the silk of her robe between his fingers, let it glide off her like a hide. 

She sank her fingers in his hair, enjoying the silk of it, the soft endurance as she tugged. She threw his crown to the ground. 

He groaned, pressing her hard against the wall until her spine knew every irregular dent in it. 

His hand was at the back of her neck, tilting her head up, wanting to ascend with her. 

She tasted like her lack of lipstick, like her lack of grace, like the raw, spiteful little princess who needed her crown. He tasted like his lack of scales, like his lack of venom, like that raw, spiteful little prince who had fashioned a crown out of nothing. 

It was eerie and unsettling how much they could swap tastes, how easily they could recognize their inner chemistry. 

_Choose me, pick me, I'm better than everyone else_ , their egos chanted, their ugly need, their ugly selves urging each other forward.

He palmed her waist under her T-shirt, the warm skin so familiar and new, a book he'd owned for a long time and hadn't paged through. He was reading every line greedily. She moaned against his mouth, hooking her ankle against the back of his leg, pulling him closer, forgetting how this all started.

The more they let themselves stew in this frenzied dance, the closer they felt to god - not God, but the god of the story, the Gargoyle King. 

He gripped her jaw painfully, needing her to open wider for him, and she hit her head against the wall and she laughed darkly in his mouth and he bit down on her lower lip, tugging it between his teeth, worrying it raw, needing it to tear for him, needing her to break, _come on, tear for me, break for me, do it..._

Her skin broke. He felt the metallic taste. Blood spilled on his tongue and he kissed her through it, kissed her smile, allowed her to bite him back. 

_In order to ascend to the next level, you must draw blood from the lady of pearls and make her smile. Can you do both?_

_Hell yeah,_ he thought darkly, swapping saliva and blood and the triumph of ownership. 

In this moment, she was his and he was hers, and they were both nobodies. 

("We should - stop -"

A kiss at the corner of his mouth, interrupted and red. Blood on their chins. 

She, staring at him, wide-eyed.

He, knowing his purpose yet wanting to go on. 

They, apart, yet knocked together.

She had _almost_ unzipped him, he had _almost_ pulled her thighs against his hips. 

They could drag each other to her bedroom right now, it was right _there_.

Jughead shut his eyes for a moment. He had a vision of the Gargoyle King chasing her, trailing her through each empty, sumptuous room, gaining on her, ripping each article of clothing as she ran, making the chandeliers quiver, finally throwing her on the bed, shredding her underwear with his claws, making a dirty little sacrifice out of her, making her cry out his name - whose name - and all the while she was laughing that dark laugh. The lady of pearls was smiling. 

"Jughead," she called and he opened his eyes. 

"It was the game, wasn't it?"

She needed him to say yes. Because if he said yes, it meant it was all pretend and they _were_ good enough for Betty and Archie, and they _weren't_ the ugly halves of the same whole.

He nodded, not willing himself to speak.)

It was the Game. That was what they told themselves. What they would tell anyone who asked. But no one would, because no one knew what had happened. 

And it would stay that way. 

He had ascended. 

And she had ascended with him.

They were on the next level, but no one needed to know. 

(The itch.

He itched for her late at night as he stared at the figures on the board. 

She lay in bed, book abandoned by her side, trying to scratch an itch that wouldn't go away. 

She checked her phone. No new messages.)


End file.
